Protecting My Lenses

[J.R. Bob Dobbs]

I ride a motorcycle a lot so keeping my lenses clean is important to me.

I have a pair of flack jackets with the carbon fiber look(i'm not sure if they are actually are carbon fiber or just look like it) I have the polarized fire iridium lenses. (as seen in my avatar)

I am wondering what if any protection car wax could offer.

I use NXT tech wax and meguiars gold glass on my vehicles.

Here are the MSDS sheets on the products i am referring to.
http://www.meguiars.com.au/msds_files/G12718.pdf
http://www.meguiars.com.au/msds_files/G12711.pdf
http://www.meguiars.com.au/msds_files/G7016.pdf

I am thinking of waxing the lenses with the NXT tech wax on the lenses and buffing it off with a micro fiber cloth.
The thought is the wax protects from rain chemicals etc. The concern is if any of the chemicals in the wax will interact with the coating on the lenses and deteriorate the coating, or possibly affect the polarization of the lenses.

If not the wax is there any sort of coating i could apply to the lens to protect it from the elemtns i may encounter while riding?

thanks ahead of time.

 

[WavecloudCustoms]

Don't do it!

Use an Oakley Hydrophobic Pen

 

[OakleyFrankFMJ]

Don't do it!

Use an Oakley Hydrophobic Pen

+1

 

[OakleyGuru379]

Car wax will ruin your lenses. Use Oakley lens cleaner, or just mild soap and water. Welcome to the forum!

 

[Rustpot]

The polarized filter is sandwiched in the lens, it's not a traditional film filter, so no worries of damaging that. Unfortunately, given the price we pay for Oakleys, they don't have the best durability in terms of scratch and abrasion resistance. The lenses are made from polycarbonate (Lexan, et al) so if you're familiar at all with polycarb visors and wind screens for motorcycles you'll know that while they're shatter resistat, impact resistant, and plenty clear when new, they can be made foggy in a hurry when cleaned improperly with certain chemicals, and they develop light surface scratches pretty easily. Added to that, Oakley's Iridium coating is a thin metal film which scratches even more easily than the polycarb substrate.

Aside from all of that, you've still got a pair of glasses from one of the frontrunners in optics technology. Clarity is superb, safety is superb, and styling is superb.

UV protection is also an inherent property of the material, so there's no worries about exposure due to wearing through a film coating or anything like that.

But the long and short of it is that if you hard-use the glasses you'll get scratches. Others may be better in that department, but they have tradeoffs.

And no, you Carbon Fiber frames are just a print over top of a nylon-based plastic.